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Tau Armory
The equipment of Tau are strange and unfamilar to the people of the New Republic or the Empire, using (in many cases) alternative and unknown technologies. Nevertheless, they are not alien - a Pulse Rifle would be easily recognized as a rifle weapon, fired in the same manner as any blaster rifle produced by BlasTech, and Tau armor is easily understood as armor. What anyone from the New Republic or the Empire might find surprising is the tremendous degree of uniformity amongst the weapons and armor used by the Tau Empire. The Tau, for the most part, do not build two weapons when one would do; whereas in the New Republic market forces drive procurement, and in the Empire, procurement is a matter of grace and favor, whereas in the Corporate Sector Authority a company uses weapons and armor it produces in-house and in Hutt space they use whatever they can lay their hands or other manipulators upon, the Tau Empire creates it's equipment by decree. There are no "companies" manufacturing competing products; a need is identified, a call is sent out for those who believe they have the answer. Those who answer the call have their ideas built and put to the test, and the chosen design is manufactured at the order of the Tau Empire. This doesn't stifle innovation as much as one might think, but the Tau are very rigorous about recycling old gear and re-equipping units with the most modern examples possible. They do, of course, maintain historical museums with functional examples (or, for the oldest items, such as slugthrowers and bows and arrows, reproductions.) Note that the Cost given is an equavilent; for comparison purposes to get an idea of how much credits' worth of manufacturing went into the item in question. When trading with Out-Caste settlements, the Tau barter, as neither mainstream Tau nor the Out-Caste have need of currency. The Availability tag is likewise pointless; Tau issue their weapons to those who recieve them. Heavy Weapons To the Tau, Heavy Weapons are Heavy. Their tactical doctrine does not allow for them to be fielded by an infantryman; an infantryman carries a rifle or a carbine. Anything heavier is the provence of battlesuits and vehicles. These weapons pack the punch of vehicular weapons, as in many cases they are vehicular weapons. They need at minimum a suit of Powered Armor to wield them in combat, and a power armor's power source to fire them. Tau do not set up fighting positions and gun emplacements the way the fighters of the New Republic and the Empire would. Consequently, the equipment does not exist to set these up as part of an emplacement, though it's not unthinkable that such equipment could be manufactured if the doctrine shifted or (hypothetically) if export partners requested such a function and were willing to trade what the Tau wanted in order to do it. Airbursting Fragmentation Projector The mother of fragmentation launchers, this weapon is the bane of those who hope that a mere trench or piece of wall will save them from the wrath of Tau. It launches a computer-enhanced, fin-guided 10cm diameter shell with a hardened penetrating cone. The interior consists of a 2-cm sphere bursting charge, and the remainder of the shell is filled with bomblets. These bomblets saturate the area the shell deonates within, negating all cover and concealment bonuses to Reflex DC against the attack. Total Cover applies, but only if the cover would be relative to the square-corner where the burst took place. The projector has an integral capacity of six rounds in a cylindrical magazine. Reloading this projector is a matter of ejecting the spent cylinder and loading a new one; heavier battlesuits such as the XV-8 would instead have a tube feed to a large ammo bin containing two dozen shells. The Airbursting Fragmentation Projector uses Rifle range. It does not benefit from Tau accuracy. Burst Cannon The oldest unmodified pulse weapon still in common use, the Fire Caste swears by this weapon. Much more energy-efficient than a blaster of similar power, this multibarreled, gyrostabalized weapon spins up and unleashes a stream of plasma bursts so rapid that recoil doesn't have a chance to throw the shooter's aim off before several shots will have been unleashed on-target. It has a selective fire switch, allowing the operator to choose between letting off a long burst of eight shots (two shots from each barrel, fired in less than a quarter of a second,) or to go for full auto with a somewhat lesser rate of fire (to avoid barrel overheating.) Burst Cannons are the work-beast of the Fire Caste, found on everything from XV 15 Stealth Suits, moderately sized powered armor, up to being used as docking guns on Tau landing craft, and are the primary weapon of light battlesuits, some heavy battlesuit configurations, and can be found on at least one configuration of every vehicle the Tau military fields, even their stealth transports. The Burst Cannon targets a 3x3 area in Autofire mode. Cyclic Ion Blaster The New Republic would consider the use of a weapon like the Cyclic Ion Blaster a war-crime. The Empire would publicly decry it as barbaric whilst privately issuing them to their own troops. The Tau consider it the answer to swarms of light infanty. The Cyclic Ion Blaster has no relation to the electrical discharge weapons that the New Republic and Empire know of as Ion weapons. The Cyclic Ion Blaster unleashes a hailstorm of beams of lethal radiation that decay and hopefully cook the target from within. The radiation decay effect is powerful; though ray-shields stop it normally, Light armor is entirely ineffective; regardless of the bonus to either Fortitude or Reflex defense, attacks made with the Cyclic Ion Blaster ignore Light armor. Only thicker armor, Medium or heavier, can withstand it, slowing the energetic particles down sufficiently to cause them to decay within the armor, instead of the person or electronics within. The Cyclic Ion Blaster targets a 5x5 area in autofire mode. It's radiation beams may be neither Deflected nor Redirected by a Lightsaber, as they are not tangible. On an attack roll of 19 or 20, the Cyclic Ion Blaster unleashed one of it's unreliable but potent 'perfect' shots; a burst of ionizing radiation that all decays at the right place at the right time, it ignores all DR and SR, and (if shooting at a vehicle of smaller size than Colossal,) deals it's damage to all members of the crew as well as the interior of the vehicle, most likely killing them and removing the vehicle effectively from the battle. Flamer Like most flamethrowers in the galaxy, the Tau's flamethrower unleashes a burning stream of high-pressure incindiary substance somewhere between a liquid and a gel, igniting it as it leaves the barrel. This battlesuit-sized flamer produces an extra-voluminous stream that sticks to absolutely everything and burns both hotter and longer than most substances used in similar applications. While it's range profile is identical to that of a normal flamethrower (a cone 6 squares long and 6 squares wide at the terminous,) it deals a larger size of damage die, adds +2 to the attack roll, and all targets which take damage (whether or not their reflex defense was exceeded) take half of the damage again in the next round. The tanks for this flamethrower is integral to the heavy device, which carries two tanks. Each tank may fire five times before it needs to be replaced; replacing the tank is a time-consuming process requiring five minutes each time, and replacement tanks cost the equavilent of 500 credits. Each tank also weighs 8Kg each. Fusion Blaster "Short-Range" and "Anti-Vehicular" are not common combinations in the New Republic or Imperial Remnant. To the Tau, the Fusion Blaster is a way of life. Epitomizing the strategy of the Mont'Ka, the Fusion Blaster's weilder stalks his target, utilizing stealth field generators and jet packs, getting close to deliver the Killing Blow to an unsuspecting vehicle's rear. The Fusion Blaster melts with supreme vigor through armor, ignoring Damage Reduction in much the same way a Lightsaber does if fired at a target within it's Short range. Materials which retain their DR versus Lightsabers likewise retain them against the Tau Fusion Blaster. The Fusion Blaster overheats very rapidly; safety interlocks refuse to allow it to fire more than once per round, regardless of any feats the firer may possess which would allow him to do so. These may be disabled with a DC 30 Mechanics check (Disabling them is actually easy; making the weapon work afterwards is the hard part.) Disabling the safety interlock on a Fusion Blaster is a bad idea, however; any attack roll of 1 (whether the first shot in a round or not) causes the weapon to blow up, dealing 6d6 damage to the wielder and all adjacent targets. This damage ignores DR. Missile Pod A simple shoulder or arm mounted multiple missile deliery system, the missile pod is used by battlesuit equipped teams for engaging enemy light vehicles, though infantry don't particularly care for it's sting, either. The warheads are armor-piercing, meant to shatter vehicles, and the launcher is perfectly capable of rapid fire, and it deals splash damage in a 2-square radius around it's target. :Remember, splash damage deals half damage if the attack roll beat the splashee's Ref defense, and none if it doesn't. The missile pod is ineligible for the Tau weapon accuracy bonus. Plasma Rifle As much of a workhorse as the Burst Cannon, the Plasma Rifle in it's current form came about shortly after the Burst Cannon did. More effective against single targets, the Plasma Rifle has longer range than the Fusion Blaster, and the same capacity to deal hurt, but less armor penetration. It's not as prone to overheating, allowing it to be fired as fast as the shooter can aim and pull the trigger, and it's decidedly much longer ranged. Railgun Employed on the XV-88 Broadside Battlesuit in twin-linked operation, this devastating weapon will plough through light and medium armored vehicles as though they were not there. The solid slugs from these beasts ignore ray shields, bypassing SR entirely. The rounds from this railgun travel far, far faster than blaster bolts or normal slugthrower rounds. It doubles the Tau accuracy bonus - reducing the penalty by 2 at Short range (negating it entirely), by 4 at Medium range (reducing it to -1), and reducing it by 6 at Long range (reducing it to -4.) Smart Missile System The Smart Missile is the size of a normal missile as launched from a missile pod, but replaces much of the warhead with microrepulsors and a miniaturized droid brain. This allows the warhead to literally fly around intervening terrain and obstacles. It requires neither Line of Sight nor Line of Effect from the shooter to the victim, and the target may only draw Cover from a source of cover which he is within or directly adjacent to, not from intervening obstacles. The Smart Missile System is an antipersonel system, not an antivehicular system; it deals splash damage to all targets within a 3-square radius of the target. As a missile system, the Smart Missile System is ineligible for the Tau weapon accuracy bonus. The droid brain within, if programmed appropriately, may be fired in "search and destroy" mode, or it may home in on targets that the firer has previously seen and marked, or on the target of any Markerlight. (In game terms, the shooter's player may select a target his character is unaware of.) Infantry Weapons Tau Infantry Weapons are significantly fewer than their heavy weapons. To the Tau, unpowered Infantry are either scouts, vehicle crew, or marksman to counter enemy infantry. Any job that calls for heavier bang is answered with a battlesuit - consequently, Tau infantry ranged weapons consist merely of a pulse rifle, pulse pistol, and pulse carbine. Tau infantry scouts (Pathfinders) often carry an additional device called a Markerlight, which is sometimes built into their carbines, and is used much like a weapon. Tau manufacture a miniaturized variant of the railgun found on Broadside battlesuits; this they call a Rail Rifle, and is not an infantry weapon per say, but integrally mounted in specialized drones which do the shooting and allow one sniper to coordinate several shots upon one target at a time whilst remaining completely hidden, himself. Markerlight Perhaps more known for their Markerlights than for the power of their pulse carbines, Pathfinders pull the Cadre forward with the teamwork of these weapon designators. A Markerlight paints the target with a beam of laser light which is invisible to most species of organic. This light is, however, very, very visible to the sensors of all Tau units, including infantry helmets and drones. Furthermore, the beam is detected by the Markerlight unit which fired it, which calculates distance and bearing relative to not only itself but all other units in the network. A Markerlight paint on a target negates any concealment it might be enjoying. It also provides all friendly targets with a +2 bonus on attacks made against that target, to a maximum bonus of +6 for three Markerlight designations. (Markerlight designations do not enhance further Markerlight designations, including the designation to call in a missile.) Alternatively, a Markerlight can designate a target for more immediate destruction, calling in a Seeker Missile launched automatically from any vehicles within two kilometers. The attack roll is made by the Pathfinder or person (or droid) weilding the Markerlight, and as long as the target isn't indoors, the missile hits immediately. The missile is not fired if the Markerlight designation fails. :Markerlights are most commonly found as handheld units held shouldered in much the same way a man-portable rocket launcher such as might be found in the New Republic or Empire would be, but this is changing. Many are being fitted onto Pathfinders' Pulse Carbines, but the phase-out of old Markerlights is slow, as many Pathfinders are far afield and refitting them is impractical. Photon Grenade A simple stun grenade that works on the principle of overloading the victim's senses, Tau tactical doctrine calls for these to be used when being charged by enemies bent on bringing the unit under attack into melee range. More recently, they've found to be mounted on underbarrel grenade launchers on Pathfinders' carbines; Pathfinders are more than happy to use these to pin an enemy unit which gets too close in place for another unit to shred them. Pulse Carbine Not fitted with a retracting stock, Pulse Carbines are shorter than Pulse Rifles, and not considered as accurate. However, they are just as lethal. Pulse Pistol Issued as a hold-out weapon use in desperate situations to the Fire Caste, this weapon is the only personal weapon which most other Castes will ever wield. It is sometimes issued to Water-Caste diplomats in potentially dangerous situations, to the leaders (or sometimes all members) of Earth-Caste work gangs operating in environments which have potential hostile wildlife (or the remotest possibility of hostile raiders,) and the Air Caste issue these to starship officers and all crew of starfighters and space transports. Pulse Rifle Long, tall and thin, the Pulse Rifle is the mainstay of Tau infantry. Supremely powerful, it benefits from twice the Tau Accuracy bonus in the same way the Railgun does; it reduces the penalty for firing at Short range by 2 (negating it entirely,) the penalty for firing at Medium range by 4 (reducing it to -1), and the penalty for firing at Long Range by 6 (reducing it to -4.) Rail Rifle The newest addition to the Hunter Cadre's arsenal, Rail Rifles have not yet been issued in a man-portable form. Instead, they are (for now) the exclusive province of sniper drones, which are controlled by a sniper specialist using a large construct not unlike a tower shield with the drone controls on the inside. Vehicular Weapons Tau manufacture a (relatively) few weapons too heavy to be mounted even on their battlesuits, or even on light vehicles. These impressive weapons would be classified as starfighter grade weapons by the militaries of the New Republic, but the Tau mount these on their main battle tanks! (To be fair, their main battle tanks are also their starfighters.) Flechette Discharger Tau military doctrine has nothing to do with melee. It's soldiers are trained in only rudimentary hand-to-hand combat tactics, little better than the average spacer picks up in cantina brawls throughout the New Republic or Empire. The thought that alien species' primary method of combat would be to close to within melee of their infantry was unthinkable. The thought that they'd try to get within melee range of their vehicles was more unthinkable than unthinkable. Yet eventually, the enemies they fought to turned to doing just that; sappers with very, very large, sticky shaped charges would gladly throw their lives away to get a bomb onto the hull of Tau vehicles, and some aliens capable of leaping or flying great distances preferred to claw onto the vehicles and rip open their hatches to murder the crew. Tau learned from the bitter experience, and equip their vehicles with flechette dischargers when they feel there's any chance an enemy might be trying to close to within melee range of the vehicle. Effectively a fragmentation grenade with a droid brain to sense enemies approaching, these explode when an enemy tries to attack, gaining an attack of opportunity when an enemy unit moves adjacent to the vehicle, and another when and if anyone attempts a melee attack or to contact the vehicle so equipped. Only one discharger will discharge per approach and strike, but there is no limit to the number of discharges per round, save the number of charges affixed to the hull. The shaped nature of the explosive ensures that they never damage the vehicle they're on, and their highly directional and last-minute adjustable nature ensures that they explode in the dirction of their target; they explode with an attack bonus of +5. Hammerhead Railgun Not the largest railgun manufactured by Tau, but the largest they equip to forces which are expected to fight on the ground and in the skies, as opposed to in the black. A massive, flat, squared and wide barrel gapes menacingly from the front of Hammerhead Gunships, promising violent death to the enemies of the Tau Empire. The particle shield has not yet been introduced to the Tau which can deflect the hammerblow of this projectile; it bypasses SR entirely. Ion Cannon Unrelated to the electrical discharge weapons of the New Republic and the Empire, the Ion Cannon used by Tau launches a bundle of charged ions at the target, reacting explosively with the target's hull. Ray shields block it as normal. Seeker Missile Normally not under the control of the crew of the vehicle that fields them, the Seeker Missile awaits a target lock from a Markerlight to fire. It fires automatically, without interfering with the crew of the vehicle which fires it, coming down with enough force to shatter most civilian spacecraft in one blow. When affixed to ground vehicles, these fire upwards and plunge down on the target. They deal their splash damage in a six-square radius of the struck target. While they're intended to be antivehicular targets, more than one Pathfinder has uses his Markerlight as a sniper weapon to bring down a rain of fire on a high-value person out in the open. =Tau Weapon Ranges= Tau weapons are very, very accurate. They reduce the range penalty at each range category by a cumulative -1 per category - Short ranged attacks take a -1 penalty, Medium ranged attacks take a -3 penalty, and Long ranged attacks take a -7 penalty. If a weapon does not benefit from this bonus, it will be noted in that weapon's description. Category:Knights of the New Republic